CPennypacker:skullkrusher: CPennypacker: Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

That would have to be carried forward losses (I think). Considering how much he made in the 90s, how could he have possibly had enough losses carried forward to wipe out his tax liability for a decade?

IIRC, some Bain funds were incorporated in Bermuda which has no income tax - as a result he wouldn't have been required to pay any income taxes on gains realized there but once he repatriated any of that money he would be liable.

God I hate taxes... well tax law at least. Taxes suck a bucket of monkey cocks too but I like road.

They don't have to be carried. You can generate new realized losses at the end of the calendar year to offset any gains/dividends/carried interest you earned.

technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

Brick-House:If Romney had done anything wrong, the IRS would be crawling up his ass

The claim isn't that he did anything illegal, it's that he paid no taxes for 10 years. If true, I suspect it would be through some kind of loophole in the laws. In which case, the IRS would not be after him, but it would still be wrong.

I can see why they're pounding on this as much as they are. Crap like this is what got Obummer elected to the Senate. If Romney had done anything wrong, the IRS would be crawling up his ass, so he should just stay on message and fook these people.

skullkrusher:EighthDay: My guess is the claim of no taxes is based upon a misrepresentation of paying such an absurdly low rate that he paid a virtually 0% tax rate.

I guess that's possible but I'd imagine Reid would have clarified that before going public with this info

Depends on how far along in the chain it went.

Hypothetically, let's say Romney bragged that he paid "almost nothing in taxes" to some of his Bain buddies. I wouldn't put that past him, given his personality. It's a short hop to "nothing in taxes."

Like you, I find it hard to believe that he paid NOTHING in fed income taxes, although it's not outside the realm of possibility given our tax codes and how much of his income is based on capital gains.

I can see why they're pounding on this as much as they are. Crap like this is what got Obummer elected to the Senate. If Romney had done anything wrong, the IRS would be crawling up his ass, so he should just stay on message and fook these people.

skullkrusher:technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

Well, when you have a lot of investments and a volatile market with high correlation, you can sell stuff when the whole market crashes and immediately buy other stuff (to avoid the wash sale rule), generating losses but not significantly affecting your market position. The way the market's been acting ever since we realized how farked up Greece is has provided pretty much the perfect environment for this sort of activity.

Captain Dan:sprag: I can't imagine this behavior entices the undecideds which end up deciding the election.

This isn't going to persuade anyone to change their vote. It's upscale birtherism.

Independents who are focused on the economy might disagree with you when the argument of the Right is that taxes are too high and that's why the economy isn't improving and their candidate for highest office in the nation refuses to disclose his personal tax rate despite the fact that the tax rates of the wealthy vs the middle and lower classes has become a national discussion when billionaires like Buffet admit that they pay a lower tax rate than the middle class people who work for them.

that's a pretty bold assertion to make if it isn't true. It's not really one of those wishy-washy "I won't address whether I think Obama is a natural born citizen to give myself plausible deniability in both directions". That's more of a "I heard from someone close to the President that Obama was not born in the US"

skullkrusher:CPennypacker: skullkrusher: CPennypacker: Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

That would have to be carried forward losses (I think). Considering how much he made in the 90s, how could he have possibly had enough losses carried forward to wipe out his tax liability for a decade?

IIRC, some Bain funds were incorporated in Bermuda which has no income tax - as a result he wouldn't have been required to pay any income taxes on gains realized there but once he repatriated any of that money he would be liable.

God I hate taxes... well tax law at least. Taxes suck a bucket of monkey cocks too but I like road.

They don't have to be carried. You can generate new realized losses at the end of the calendar year to offset any gains/dividends/carried interest you earned.

technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

You don't really lose anything unless the stock moves significantly in 30 days

Lets say you made 10 dollars in capital gains this year. You say "fark uncle sam, I'm not paying taxes on this"

You have one share of apple you bought at 200. Right now its 190. Sell it, then 30 days later buy it back. Ideally the stock hasn't moved or it has gone down. Now you have the same position you had before, a $10 realized loss and you didn't actually lose any money

incendi:skullkrusher: technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

Well, when you have a lot of investments and a volatile market with high correlation, you can sell stuff when the whole market crashes and immediately buy other stuff (to avoid the wash sale rule), generating losses but not significantly affecting your market position. The way the market's been acting ever since we realized how farked up Greece is has provided pretty much the perfect environment for this sort of activity.

That's a good point... Moving money around and taking advantage of volatility to reduce your taxable income without actually reducing your wealth... Romney's got the financial acumen (and advisers) to take advantage of that.

tenpoundsofcheese: This just in, if you have low income, you don't have to pay income taxes. Income is not the same as wealth. Someone worth $250M who doesn't draw a salary and doesn't have net stock gains and lives off of savings, won't pay any income taxes.

Congratulations. Your defense of Romney is exactly as vague and speculative as Harry Reid's accusations against him.

incendi:skullkrusher: technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

Well, when you have a lot of investments and a volatile market with high correlation, you can sell stuff when the whole market crashes and immediately buy other stuff (to avoid the wash sale rule), generating losses but not significantly affecting your market position. The way the market's been acting ever since we realized how farked up Greece is has provided pretty much the perfect environment for this sort of activity.

you're still net revenue neutral in that case. I don't see the point. Selling a bigtime loser you've held for a while that has no hope of appreciating to offset profits you've taken, sure, I can see that but to do it for 10 years as a tax strategy? Again you're better off paying the 15% rather than taking losses to avoid that 15% only to buy back similar (but not identical) investments in the hope they recoup your losses

Barricaded Gunman:tenpoundsofcheese: This just in, if you have low income, you don't have to pay income taxes. Income is not the same as wealth. Someone worth $250M who doesn't draw a salary and doesn't have net stock gains and lives off of savings, won't pay any income taxes.

Congratulations. Your defense of Romney is exactly as vague and speculative as Harry Reid's accusations against him.

The difference being one gets ridiculed while the other gets greelit on Fark as a fact.

Halli:It won't change the fact that Romney is secretive about something that every presidential candidate has released for decades.

That is factually incorrect (McCain released 2 years, for example). Moreover, it betrays a lack of understanding about politics.

Q: Why did George Romney release 12 years of tax returns?

Hint: It wasn't because he was a nice, upstanding guy.

A: Because it was to his political advantage to do so. He was running against Lyndon Johnson, one of the most financially corrupt politicians in American history (LBJ used his political influence to amass ~$100 million while in the Senate, without any side business ventures), and wanted to highlight an issue that he perceived to be to his advantage.

Mitt Romney obviously feels that it's not to his political advantage to release the same number of tax returns. The outcome is different, but the reasoning is the same.

that's a pretty bold assertion to make if it isn't true. It's not really one of those wishy-washy "I won't address whether I think Obama is a natural born citizen to give myself plausible deniability in both directions". That's more of a "I heard from someone close to the President that Obama was not born in the US"

That's why it was made by the recently re-elected Senate Majority leader, and not anyone directly tied to the campaign. It also might not be wholly false - the "almost no taxes" to "no taxes" jump seems plausible.

In any case, it's a textbook example of trolling, and it certainly seems to be working as intended.

Lord Dimwit:Now, Mitt won't release his tax returns - something that every Presidential candidate back to Mitt's father has done

Really? The guy who got 19% of the vote in 1992 released his tax returns? Wrong. The media didn't even care.Kerry released his tax returns, but what a surprise, his wife didn't (as if Kerry didn't benefit from the income of his wife, yeah right).

CPennypacker:skullkrusher: CPennypacker: skullkrusher: CPennypacker: Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

That would have to be carried forward losses (I think). Considering how much he made in the 90s, how could he have possibly had enough losses carried forward to wipe out his tax liability for a decade?

IIRC, some Bain funds were incorporated in Bermuda which has no income tax - as a result he wouldn't have been required to pay any income taxes on gains realized there but once he repatriated any of that money he would be liable.

God I hate taxes... well tax law at least. Taxes suck a bucket of monkey cocks too but I like road.

They don't have to be carried. You can generate new realized losses at the end of the calendar year to offset any gains/dividends/carried interest you earned.

technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

You don't really lose anything unless the stock moves significantly in 30 days

Lets say you made 10 dollars in capital gains this year. You say "fark uncle sam, I'm not paying taxes on this"

You have one share of apple you bought at 200. Right now its 190. Sell it, then 30 days later buy it back. Ideally the stock hasn't moved or it has gone down. Now you have the same position you had before, a $10 realized loss and you didn't actually lose any money

I suppose you could use the wash sale limits in that way but still, that would mean Mittens didn't actually net any money for 10 years. This I find rather dubious. The guy didn't even have a stock throwing off dividends? If *I* had that sort of money, I'd buy a really nicely diversified portfolio of TTF munis and never file a return again while I scuba dove by day and drank beer by night for the rest of my days. Doesn't seem he did that though

Captain Dan:Romney should offer to release his tax returns in exchange for Obama releasing his college transcripts. It would be an instant Great Moments in Politics.

/they're both probably mildly embarrassing but innocuous

What is the big deal about Obama's college transcripts? Why would anyone (besides a GOP shill, I mean) care what was in them? How could you make the leap there there is some sort of equivalency here (or did I parenthetically answer my own question?)?.

Captain Dan:Halli: It won't change the fact that Romney is secretive about something that every presidential candidate has released for decades.

That is factually incorrect (McCain released 2 years, for example). Moreover, it betrays a lack of understanding about politics.

Q: Why did George Romney release 12 years of tax returns?

Hint: It wasn't because he was a nice, upstanding guy.

A: Because it was to his political advantage to do so. He was running against Lyndon Johnson, one of the most financially corrupt politicians in American history (LBJ used his political influence to amass ~$100 million while in the Senate, without any side business ventures), and wanted to highlight an issue that he perceived to be to his advantage.

Mitt Romney obviously feels that it's not to his political advantage to release the same number of tax returns. The outcome is different, but the reasoning is the same.

Yes, but there's clearly no advantage to keeping the returns hidden, either. So Romney believes there is a greater advantage to keeping them hidden than releasing them; this inevitably leads to speculation as to why it is more beneficial for Romney to keep them hidden.

skullkrusher:CPennypacker: skullkrusher: CPennypacker: skullkrusher: CPennypacker: Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

That would have to be carried forward losses (I think). Considering how much he made in the 90s, how could he have possibly had enough losses carried forward to wipe out his tax liability for a decade?

IIRC, some Bain funds were incorporated in Bermuda which has no income tax - as a result he wouldn't have been required to pay any income taxes on gains realized there but once he repatriated any of that money he would be liable.

God I hate taxes... well tax law at least. Taxes suck a bucket of monkey cocks too but I like road.

They don't have to be carried. You can generate new realized losses at the end of the calendar year to offset any gains/dividends/carried interest you earned.

technically yeah, you could generate losses to reduce (or eliminate) your cap gains but what's the point in that? You're better off paying the 15% than losing 100%

You don't really lose anything unless the stock moves significantly in 30 days

Lets say you made 10 dollars in capital gains this year. You say "fark uncle sam, I'm not paying taxes on this"

You have one share of apple you bought at 200. Right now its 190. Sell it, then 30 days later buy it back. Ideally the stock hasn't moved or it has gone down. Now you have the same position you had before, a $10 realized loss and you didn't actually lose any money

I suppose you could use the wash sale limits in that way but still, that would mean Mittens didn't actually net any money for 10 years. This I find rather dubious. The guy didn't even have a stock throwing off dividends? If *I* had that sort of money, I'd buy a really nicely diversified portfolio of TTF munis and never file a return again while I scuba dove by day and drank beer by night ...

You still keep your gains. The losses are paper losses only. At the end of the day you still have your realized losses and the positions you had before. The only other thing you have to account for is any movement in the stocks you sold to harvest losses.

Barricaded Gunman:tenpoundsofcheese: This just in, if you have low income, you don't have to pay income taxes. Income is not the same as wealth. Someone worth $250M who doesn't draw a salary and doesn't have net stock gains and lives off of savings, won't pay any income taxes.

Congratulations. Your defense of Romney is exactly as vague and speculative as Harry Reid's accusations against him.

Ummm, the difference is that if you are a public figure and a supposed leader and you going to accuse someone of something, you should have more than "I heard from some guy".

FishStampede:Derp up there does actually bring up a good point, that the oft-used argument about people who pay zero federal income tax is they still pay other taxes like sales tax, social security, etc. If Mitt paid zero income tax, it's true he still probably paid taxes everywhere. Unless he managed to completely write off his homes as churches, buy everything online but have a minion pick it up from the distributor thus avoiding S&H, etc. That would just be completely silly.

We can be outraged about him not paying INCOME taxes at his level of wealth, but we do have to acknowledge he put into the pot somewhere along the way, even if he might have put a ten in but taken a buck or two back out and snickered as he walked away.

So basically, the same kinds of taxes that your average illegal immigrant pays.

StanleyPuff:gilgigamesh: Mitt is stuck either continuing to dodge the press and look shady, or come clean.

What if it is a lesson he learned from the Obama birth certificate days...Let high profile politicians and/or celebrities work themselves into a nice, sudsy froth and then:

BLAMMO!

10 years of Romney's tax returns, sans reason for poutrage.

/Mitt's been too high profile for too long...

I believe this is the point when a southern woman would say "Oh, bless your heart"

Romney has so many other skeletons that this is just one of the sideshows. Even if he makes it go away with a poof (which won't happen), Obama will pull something else out and Romney will be on the defensive _AGAIN_.

sprag:So where are his 2011 returns? As I recall, they were due mid-April.

If he filed them and not released them, then he's hiding something that would hurt his campaign.If he hasn't filed them, then he's paying penalties which are worth less than what he's getting out of delaying. Either there's something that would hurt his campaign or he's reworking the numbers to pay even less in taxes.

No matter what the situation is, I can't imagine this behavior entices the undecideds which end up deciding the election.

/deadlines are for poor people.

You can file for an extension in which case your return isn't due until, IIRC, Oct. 15. Surprise!

CPennypacker:You still keep your gains. The losses are paper losses only. At the end of the day you still have your realized losses and the positions you had before. The only other thing you have to account for is any movement in the stocks you sold to harvest losses.

hmmm... assuming you can get back in near the price at which you sold, I suppose that would work. It's not a strategy that grows wealth over time though nor is it likely to be reproduceable for a decade. Your net worth remains stagnant at best - it just allows you to take some profits for income and live off of them while avoiding. In order to have no reportable taxable income, you'd have to always have your losses offset your gains. That sort of accuracy is virtually impossible so you'd likely wind up losing money year over year in terms of net worth

FishStampede:Derp up there does actually bring up a good point, that the oft-used argument about people who pay zero federal income tax is they still pay other taxes like sales tax, social security, etc. If Mitt paid zero income tax, it's true he still probably paid taxes everywhere. Unless he managed to completely write off his homes as churches, buy everything online but have a minion pick it up from the distributor thus avoiding S&H, etc. That would just be completely silly.

We can be outraged about him not paying INCOME taxes at his level of wealth, but we do have to acknowledge he put into the pot somewhere along the way, even if he might have put a ten in but taken a buck or two back out and snickered as he walked away.

My in-laws live in the Mormon Mecca of Nauvoo, IL and this is exactly what the Mormon's started to do when they moved back. Everything they buy is "for the church" so they skirt taxes like mad. The tax burden has come down hard on the non-Mormons in the area.

This has been the plan all along. Put out Romney as red meat to keep the Democrats busy while the real nominees get to sit back unvetted until it is too late. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, your REAL Republican ticket was not be revealed until the convention but due someone inside the GOP using 'turdblossom' as the wifi password we can now let you know the truth... your Republican Presidential Ticket for 2012: Victoria Jackson/Craig T. Nelson!

Woohoo!

Jackson/Nelson '12!

/Just kidding, we know Republicans could never vote for someone with a last name like Jackson.